A smile can brighten up someone's day
by shiny-chang
Summary: -oneshot- ... but yours is the sun in my life (or something as cheesy as that). Or the things Scorpius notices about Rose over the years


**A smile can brighten up someone's day**

(_but yours is the sun in my life_)

by _shiny-chang_

The first thing Scorpius notices about Rose is her smile. Others usually notice her hair – it's the signature Weasley red after all – or her parents standing protectively beside her as they talk to the Potters. But when he glances at them when his father makes some comment about them to Mother, he sees the way her eyes crinkle and her lips curve upwards into a smile that takes over her whole face. Then it disappears into a pout, though her brown eyes still twinkle with left over laughter.

His attention's brought back to his parents as his father says something about beating that Weasel girl in everything, studies, Quidditch, House points. His mother shushes him and tells him that he should just do the best he can, 'we'll be proud, no matter what, _even if you do end up in Gryffindor_,' she adds with a smirk at his father.

Scorpius is more inclined to listen to his mother, at least on this instance, because he doesn't think he would be able to bring back that smile from the Weasley girl if he's beating her in class and at Quidditch.

And he's made it his own secret mission to get a smile, or more, from her. Even if it will take the whole year, or their whole Hogwarts career, or longer. It's not as if anyone else will know.

(_Little does he know then, that he will earn his first smile mere hours later when he tells some stupid joke about a Crumple-Horned Snorkack that he didn't know he knew and wouldn't be able to remember after that moment, because her smile blinds him and makes him forget about anything else apart from the peals of laughter and the twinkle of her eyes and her wide wide grin.)_

-x-

Of course, Scorpius does notice Rose's hair.

It's sort of difficult not to, with it being that special brand of Weasley red that matches their Gryffindor common room. You could spot that flame colour and tell it was a Weasley from anywhere, in the wizarding world, even in the Muggle world probably.

No, Scorpius _really_ notices Rose's hair, further than the redness of it and its curliness inherited from her mother, in their third year, when they're revising for their end of year exams.

They're sitting opposite each other in the common room, her feet tucked beneath her as she rereads her Potions notes while he's sort of slumped against the armchair behind him. She leans over to grab something from the coffee table separating them, presumably a quill or a book or something. But he doesn't find out because the next second, she's lost her balance (how did she even get on the Quidditch team?) and he's sitting up and leans forward to catch her before she bashes her head. She swears and thanks him and gives him a thankful grin before resting her head against his shoulder as she regains her breath and slows her heartbeat.

Her hair, usually tied up in a messy bun but today let down in a wild halo of red curls, presses softly against his neck and flutters against his bare forearms and he marvels at how soft it is and he nearly forgets that he's still holding her up. He breathes in and almost takes in a nose-ful of hair but he doesn't really care because it's smells nice and fresh and like his favourite apple-flavoured sweets.

He feels like he could hold her and just smell her hair and have the feel of her hair on his skin forever.

But then he remembers that they're in the middle of the Gryffindor common room and he's technically just holding her up so she doesn't crack her head open because she's a massive klutz when she's not playing Quidditch, oh and they're friends, _best _friends, but just friends. He makes sure that she's regained her balance enough, that her legs aren't tangled together anymore, that she can manage to hold herself up, before he pulls away, from the touch and smell of her hair.

(_He doesn't know that she notices how long he was holding her for and that he starts a little habit of breathing in deeply when they hug or are just standing by each other. But she does notice both of those things. And she stops putting her hair into a bun unless it's really annoying her. And she owls her mum to buy her more of that Muggle shampoo, a _lot_ more._)

-x-

When they're in fourth year, Scorpius notices how utterly messy Rose's handwriting is.

He's surprised he hadn't really noticed earlier, considering how long they'd been friends for. But yes, he only notices how messy it is when he's borrowing someone _else_'s notes for Care of Magical Creatures. He usually takes Rose's notes, because he can't be bothered to listen when there are interesting creatures like Hippogriffs to admire or boring creatures like Flubberworms to 'look after', and it's just become a habit over the years.

On that particular day, however, Rose was ill enough to make her not come to lessons, so Scorpius has to borrow notes from Albus, who doesn't make as good notes because he doesn't usually have to take notes for two people, but they're good enough. Except it looks weird because it's actually neat, with well-formed letters and words properly spaced. It's not the wild scrolling script that is Rose's handwriting, which somehow remains very much legible.

And he tells her so.

And she looks at him weirdly.

'Well, it _has_ to be legible. Otherwise you won't be able to pass your OWLs. Not that you are likely to anyway, even _if_ you do have my notes,' she replies.

'Doesn't explain the messy though.'

She just shrugs, and gives him a 'what can you do' half-smirk.

And he supposes it _is_ a very Rose handwriting, _actually_, since she is just generally a hardly well-put-together person, aesthetically, but manages to charm the socks off everyone she meets.

(_And he vows never to borrow anyone else's notes, even if it does mean that he fails the subject. And he gives up taking notes or paying attention in more and more of his lessons as the terms go by, just so he has an excuse to take Rose's notes. And she grudgingly hands them over with a roll of her eyes, because he is her best friend. (And because she doesn't want him to fail his way out of Hogwarts or stay back year, because who else would come up with stupid comments about messy but legible handwriting. Not that she changes it. Because, well, it's legible, and that's what matters.)_)

-x-

Scorpius notices just how tall Rose is, twice.

The first time is when they return from Christmas holidays in fifth year. He's just put his stuff away in his dormitory and reaches the common room just as she enters with the rest of the Weasley contingent.

As she nears him, he finds himself having to tilt his head up. Just slightly. But he still has to tilt his head to look at her in the eyes. And a shit-eating grin takes over her face as she realises it as well.

She doesn't tease him about it, too much. But that was only because she was taller than most of the guys in their year, so she _has_ to divide her ribbing between too many people.

(_And it only lasts a few months before he's shooting up as well and regains his original height advantage before her growth-spurt. Not that there had been much of a height advantage, but a few centimetres were better than nothing._)

The second time is a couple of weeks before Christmas a year and a half after they graduate from Hogwarts. They'd met up for coffee after his shift at St Mungo's and she had managed to wheedle out an early leave from her boss (because she was just that persuasive, and plus he owed her for the number of all-nighters she'd pulled to put together various editions of the magazine over the past year), and that had turned into a shopping trip, because neither of them had had time or been bothered to buy presents yet.

They end up in a shoe shop where she proceeded to try on the pair of heeled boots she'd seen in the shop window. He's looking at some baby shoes that he considers buying for Teddy's two year old daughter when he feels her tap on his shoulder. He turns around and gets a sense of déjà vu when he has to tilt his head up to look at Rose's face, just like those painful months four years ago.

'Y'know, I've decided that I _will_ splash out on these babies,' she says with a smirk on her lips. And he groans, knowing that he wouldn't be able to stop her and that she will have the time of her life annoying and teasing him with those boots.

(_It wasn't as if he was short or anything; he's a perfectly respectable height, taller than James – Albus and Hugo and Rose were just freaks of nature. He takes satisfaction in the fact that he's at least taller than Rose, which is more than he can say for most of her past and future boyfriends._)

-x-

That Rose is a ridiculously big eater, even by Weasley standards, is something Scorpius only notices on her twenty-third birthday. He'd known she ate a lot compared to most other women he knew, but he'd put it down to the Weasley genes and the amount of Quidditch she played.

But as he watches her wolf down piece after piece of pizza, rather than the movie they'd put on, and he sees that even James and Fred are staring at her in slight disgust and awe, he realises that she ate a lot compared to most, if not all, other _humans_ he knew. And that _was_ including the Weasleys, because James and Fred are, were previously, the biggest eaters he knew.

'What? I'm hungry,' she said between mouthfuls.

'Is your boss starving you or something? Because there's hungry, and then there's … well, _you_,' Scorpius replies.

'_No_, my boss is _not_ starving me. I had a very satisfying Chinese takeaway for lunch, but I also had a stressful day, editing stupid people's rubbish English, so excuse me for being hungry. You already _knew_ I ate a lot.'

'A lot, yeah, but not this much. Did you guys know?' he asks the other Weasleys, who half shake their heads, half shrug in a maybe-but-not-_this _-much-in-one-sitting manner. 'I swear you didn't eat this much at school.'

'Didn't have time. And there were other people who would judge me, like you're doing now, but I don't care, it's my birthday.'

James gives him a shake of the head, telling him to 'just leave it, it's already been twenty three years, there's no changing her.' And Scorpius shrugs, because it's not so much he's disgusted by the two large pizzas she's managed to scoff down in the past hour, but more just surprised that he hadn't noticed in the twelve years of knowing her. They turn their attentions back to the movie, watching as some raccoon starts shooting random people with a gun machine.

(_And he really doesn't think too much of it afterwards, apart from toasting a few more pieces of bread and frying a few more rashers of bacon whenever she stays over the night, and thinking that if and whenever they have an argument (or 'lover's spat', as Albus would teasingly call it), he could probably just win back her affections with loads of food._)

-x-

Scorpius notices that Rose is mind-blowingly beautiful fifteen years after he first notices her smile.

It wasn't that he hadn't known she was beautiful – she did brush up quite nicely if and when she put the effort in, like for James' New Year's parties each year. It just wasn't any sort of traditional beauty, like Lily's model figure that caused her to be scouted on the streets more often than not, or like Dominique who literally turned heads whenever she entered a room, or even the quiet girl-next-door prettiness that Molly had perfected. Apart from her red hair, Rose would easily have been passed over in the streets and in any room, especially when all her cousins were there as well.

All in all, most would maybe say she was quite ordinary beauty-wise. Pretty. But not outstandingly so.

But when Rose had turned back towards him after shooing Teddy and Victoire's rascal twins onto the Hogwarts Express, laughing at some snarky reply they'd made to the warnings she'd promised Teddy that morning, before he rushed off to an urgent appointment, she would make (with her fingers crossed), Scorpius found his mind go empty and mouth dry and tongue tied.

She'd waved her hand in front of his eyes. But he gave no response apart from to blink blankly.

'Oi, you in there, Scorp?' She tilted her head to the side, brows furrowing in concern at his lack of response.

'You're beautiful.'

'Okay, thanks, Scorp. Are you sure you're okay, though?' she asked him, shrugging off the compliment, because it wasn't the weirdest or unexpected thing he'd ever said to her.

'I.. I uh…'

All he could think was that she really _was_ beautiful, to him at least.

(_Scorpius notices how soft her lips are exactly thirty seconds later._

_And when she gives him the happiest but smallest smile she'd ever given anyone after they pull apart, he realises that he may been in love with her, and had been for the past fifteen years._)


End file.
